Portable Interpretation Equipment: What to Get and Why
Portable interpretation systems get a bad rap, and the names used to designate them leave no doubt: tour-guide system; bidule (the thingy); valisette (the briefcase). Yet there are settings where they are the only practical solution available, which explains their increasing popularity with many international organizations for use on field missions and in meeting rooms […]
Challenge Results are In. And They are Telling
Wondering about the results of the NTIF Interpreting Technology Challenge? Wonder no more! As it turns out, the weather was a bit too cold for ice-cream anywhere else in Helsinki, on November 24, 2017. But the temperature at Scandic Paasi Hotel was mounting fast as contestants and voters gathered for NTIF’s first Interpreting Technology Challenge. Six of the most […]
Interpreting Technology Tasting (for ice-cream lovers!)
The field of interpreting is undergoing some ground-shaking changes. Ubiquitous broadband has made multilingual streaming a reality. Neural machine translation is flirting with voice recognition. And Google has just introduced its first version of a babel fish that you can literally stick in your ear. Pretty exciting news for users who believe they can now […]
Mind your language, you @#x!$%* !
A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by the BBC in connection with an incident involving the interpreter who watered down parts of President Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly that were critical of the Iranian regime. Detailed transcriptions of both the original and the interpretation can be easily found online. The interpreter was […]